Gwyneth Paltrow Is All Business

My first purview of management was on set, because — and I think other female actors would agree with me — part of your role is just to sort of maintain culture.

What do you mean?

We’re female. So we are kind of channeling the energy for the set and correcting imbalances. If there was ever any discord, especially between men, I felt it was my job to sort of balance the energy a little bit. Also, as in most industries, it’s predominantly male. Sometimes you would be the girl in a male cast, and could bring femininity and temper some of the male stuff.

Does that hold true in business as well? Is it the same at Goop?

Oh, completely. I think it’s both intentional and not intentional. The provenance of the company is such that when I went to go monetize it, the people who were drawn to it were not Silicon Valley males. So the great talent that I attracted was female.

O.K. Is there any analogy between either the producer role and the C.E.O. role?

My dad was a benevolent, tough Jewish boss. He was very loved for the most part, and he gave me a template for how one leads, consciously or unconsciously.

So what’s the balance that you try to strike as the leader of the company?

With every iteration of the company, I have to start completely at square one again.

How so?

When you’re in the family stage and your company has just nine people or whatever, it’s much different than trying to manage and maintain a culture of 250 people. I have no experience at this. It’s almost like I have to unlearn things, relearn things, start over.

When a start-up starts, it’s full of feminine energy, even if it’s an all male start-up. Right? Because it’s collaborative, it’s emotional, it’s passionate, it’s instinctual. Those are all feminine qualities. And then as it scales, you have to put some rules in place. And so that’s where the masculine comes in. And you have compliance and H.R. and all these things that are putting structure to the business, which is super important. So unlearning some of the old kind of feminine ways, trying to apply the right kind of masculinity, and seeing if it’s possible to really still lead from that feminine place, is what I think about.